The Titanic expert’s daughter was killed when a submarine imploded near the doomed liner and says voyages to the wreck must continue.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet was one of five people killed when the OceanGate submarine Titan catastrophically imploded near the Titanic wreck on June 18 last year.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, businessmen Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood, and Mr Dawood’s teenage son Suleman were also killed.
Mr Nargeolet, a former naval diver, was nicknamed ‘Mr Titanic’ for his many expeditions to the wreck.
His daughter Sidonie claims OceanGate never made contact after the disaster.
Speaking from her home in Ordino, Andorra, the 40-year-old said she had still not heard from anyone at the company eight months after her loss.
She said: ‘My anger is mainly because no one from OceanGate has contacted us to say we apologize for your loss, which I am angry about.
“At least I think they could have contacted us to say we apologize for your loss.”
The daughter of Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who died when a submarine imploded near the doomed liner, says voyages to the wreck must continue. Sidonie claims that OceanGate never made contact after the disaster
Mr Nargeolet was one of five people killed when the OceanGate submarine Titan catastrophically imploded near the Titanic wreck on June 18 last year. Above: Wreckage from the submarine is seen being brought ashore in Newfoundland after being discovered shortly after the tragedy
Mr Nargeolet (left) was in the submarine with Stockton Rush (right) – CEO of the OceanGate Expedition – and three others
However, despite her father’s fate, she believes that the expeditions to the wreck of the Titanic should continue.
“I think they should,” she said.
“We don’t need to create confusion between a bad sub and a good one, you know?
“I think it’s good for people to go on the submarine and it’s good to take artifacts from the Titanic, but not to play with safety, people’s lives.”
Before the disaster, Miss Nargeolet had no idea her father’s dives could be dangerous.
She said: ‘I’ve always been used to it, so I guess it was normal for me.
‘So I never wondered whether the submarine was good or not.
“He told me the Titan was a new kind of submarine, but he didn’t tell me he was worried about that.”
She continued, “I didn’t know anything about this sub, I didn’t know how it was made.
“From what I heard, it seems so many people said it was a bad submarine, so why was it able to go into the sea?”
The first sign of the unfolding tragedy came in a text message from Mr Nargeolet’s wife, Anne Sarraz-Bournet.
A desperate search for the submarine was launched after it lost contact with its mothership and disappeared during an expedition to the Titanic wreck on Sunday, June 18, 2023
The Titan submarine before the disaster. It imploded catastrophically
Also on board were British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman
A young Mr. Nargeolet in a diving suit. He spent more than twenty years in the French Navy
Mr. Nargeolet in his French naval uniform. He was a veteran of expeditions to the wreck of the Titanic
Mrs. Nargeolet as a young girl with her father. She says expeditions to the wreck should continue
Speaking from her home in Ordino, Andorra, the 40-year-old said she had still not heard from anyone at OceanGate eight months after her loss.
“She sent me a WhatsApp telling me that my father had been on the submarine and he didn’t come back on time,” Sidonie said.
‘The moment I read the message I was in total panic because I thought “it’s a sub, if there’s a problem it’s really bad”.
‘But with time and some explanation, I really started to get hopeful and think, “No, maybe they’ve lost radio contact, it’s going to be okay.”
“I don’t know if it was because there was real hope or because it was my father and I didn’t want to think he was dead.”
Regardless, her hopes were dashed when the U.S. Coast Guard announced to the families that Titan had been lost.
She said: ‘We had four days to prepare for it, but either way it’s hard to accept.
“We’ve heard that it’s all done, but it’s very hard to realize because we don’t see any bodies, you know?
“So it’s like he’s gone. Okay, but we have nothing to say goodbye to.’
Banging sounds were detected at 30-minute intervals by underwater sonars called “sonobuoys.” Graphic shows how they were used during last year’s search
According to experts, the “banging” could come from search equipment in the area, marine life such as whales or even just sounds from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
French-born Mr. Nargeolet described his experiences diving the wreck of the Titanic in a book, Dans les profondeurs du Titanic (In the Depths of the Titanic).
Now the book has been translated into English under a new title, The Secrets of the Titanic.
The Secrets of the Titanic, translated by Laura Haydon, is now available for Kindle on Amazon, with a paperback release in June.
Ms Nargeolet said: ‘I’m really happy. Last May, my father told me that his book was being translated into English.
‘Certainly he didn’t see the result, but I’m glad he told me and now it’s going out.
“I learned a lot of things in the book, and it’s something that will always keep him there.”
An OceanGate representative said they contacted the Nargeolet family after the accident.
Mr. Nargeolet spent more than twenty years in the French Navy before leading several expeditions to the wreck of the Titanic.
His ‘unparalleled’ knowledge of the Titanic and the footage he captured during his world-famous dives there helped inspire his friend James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster film.
Nargeolet’s love for diving and the oceans began at the age of nine when he discovered his ‘first wreck’ by following divers in Morocco.
And that passion led him to join the French Navy, where he served in mine clearance for 22 years before becoming a “leading authority” on the Titanic.
The sailor, born in Chamonix, France, was the first person to bring up an object – a silver plate – from the Titanic in 1987 and in 2022 he told Le Parisien that he had read “200 to 300 books” about the wreck.
The initial disappearance of the Titan submarine led to a frantic and high-profile search, with rescuers initially hoping they would find the occupants alive in the ocean.
Initial theories about what might have happened included that radio contact or steering and propulsion power had been lost.
The world held its breath as armies, navies and private companies from around the world flocked to Newfoundland to help find the missing submarine before the oxygen ran out.
However, after days of searching, a search team found debris from the submarine about 500 meters from the Titanic’s bow.
Titan had imploded due to the enormous water pressure pressing down on the ship, killing everyone on board in probably a matter of milliseconds.
The occupants had been on an expedition to view the wreck of the Titanic liner, which has been the subject of global interest since it sank after hitting an iceberg in April 1912.
